Isle of Man Festival – Review
Isle of Man National Park, Isle of Man
The Isle of Man festival closed as it has every year in recent memory – with murderous thunderstorms, gale-force winds, and an indefatigable crowd of revellers lapping up the various attractions on offer. This year saw the biggest-ever attendance at ‘ManFest’, with a crowd of 302 (including 17 weekend campers) setting sail to the sprawling 1,000 hectare site to see headline acts Boy George, Metallica and Des’Ree.
Isle of Man is nothing if not a unique event in the overcrowded festival calendar. The weather is adverse, to say the least, with conditions more akin to those on the promenade deck of a P&O ferry amid a particularly rough overnight crossing. Rare is the tent that is not flattened within the first hour by the one-two punch of violent wind and rain. And those that do survive become fodder for roving bands of local youths, who annihilate all tents and water points they come across (no one has found out why).
But all is part of Isle of Man’s peculiar charm. Festival founder, and former Olympic triple-jump champion, Jonathan Edwards opened proceedings on Friday by introducing rapper Terry Maxx, who duly delivered a terrible set – only redeemed by eternal crowd-pleaser ‘Walkin’ in the Name’. By this point, the area around the main stage had become a heap of clotted mud and several festival-goers had reported to the medical tent, suffering angst. It took Boy George to raise sprits, which he singularly failed to do, delivering a plodding series of pedestrian cover versions, including ‘Starman’ and ‘Untitled’ by Sigur Ros.
By the time Metallica played the following day, only the most stoical festival-goers remained. The rest were safely ensconced in a local Travelodge, presumably recharging their batteries for festival-closer Des’Ree – whose gigs are infamous for their orgiastic passion and waves of sectarian violence. Indeed, the crowd was certainly at its most raucous on Sunday night, waving medium-sized flags and drinking Carling lager by the half-pint. Sadly, her most celebrated song, ‘Life’, was plagued by technical problems that muted the music and left only the vocal audible. The audience were left in stitches as the sheer inanity of the lyric hit home: ‘”I don’t want to see a ghost, it’s the sight that I fear most, I’d rather have a piece of toast, watch the evening news.” A humiliated Des’Ree left the stage in tears, though she did return for a triumphant encore – a cover of ‘Karma Chameleon’, which Boy George had forgotten to perform on Friday.
Jonathan Edwards made a final appearance as the curtain came down on another Isle of Man festival, thanking the crowd for their patronage and invoicing them one-by-one for any additional expenses they had incurred while on the site.
Des'Ree - left the stage in tears (after hearing her own lyrics)
